28 June 2024

A much more comfortable day today following yesterdays humidity.  Looking ahead, the coming weekend looks reasonable, quite warm, but with more unsettled conditions next week and below average temperatures.  

I had a lengthy appointment at the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital today, therefore I gathered a few widely scattered records beginning with some casual observations in and from the garden.

Early morning in the garden saw a juvenile Robin on the lawn, also a juvenile Blackbird fed upon provided apples.  Overhead a single male Greenfinch performed its song-flight and a single Lesser Black-backed Gull passed by.  House Sparrows in the hedge gave an alarm call, this alerted me to the presence of a raptor, seconds later a single Hobby passed through at speed, as it turned the early sun caught its beautiful all-grey upperparts.  About an hour later, another, or possibly the same Hobby flew at speed and in a shallow dive, clearly a hunting bird.

At the hospital the car park held Pied Wagtail and a singing Blackcap.

I decided upon taking a back roads drive back home to Watton which took in the beautiful countryside at Wicklewood and Deopham.

As I approached Wicklewood a Red Kite flew up from road kill upon which it had been feeding from.  Later, whilst driving over the former Deopham airfield, a few House Martins flew low over crops in their search for food, also, a single Kestrel was hunting and a single Pied Wagtail was on a muck heap, a good food source.

Back at home a single Red Kite drifted slowly over the estate and a soaring Buzzard was present.  Perhaps the epitome of an English summers day is seeing and listening to screaming parties of Swifts, such a display occurred overhead.  Wonderful !